Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study on Ezra 9:1-4 (February 29, 2024)

February 29, 2024:  Thursday Bible Study on the OT book of Ezra 9:1-4

Blessing and Peace be with you on this day which the Lord has made.  May we all rejoice and be glad in it. 

Today please pray for Chris W.  He is currently unemployed and looking for work, and continue prayers for Jeff and Kandice, both of whom are suffering with cancer that is ineligible for surgery and needs new treatment methods to treat it successfully.  Pray too for the people around them who are supporting them in this health journey in their lives.  Today, do something that you have probably not done for a while.  Tell Jesus that you love Him!

The Old Testament book of Ezra

In our passage from Ezra today we are faced with a problem that continues on in communities of faith currently as well.  Ezra arrives some 100 years after the first groups of returning exiles, the Judahites, arrive to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple.  What he finds when he arrives is a very disturbing reality.  As one might expect, for several generations, the Judahites who returned have intermarried with the men and women of the tribes who moved into the area which the exiles intended to rebuild.  Knowing human nature, no one should be surprised that people, both Judahite, and non-Judahite, found partners in the communities of the other non-Judahite tribes.  We find in this text a laundry list of the tribes which Ezra cannot and will not accept as appropriate for intermarriage.  He lists historic tribes which no longer exist, and some that are current when Ezra arrives.  The Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites and Amorites no longer exist as tribes in Ezra's time, but the Ammonites, Moabites, and Egyptians are still present.  If you are thinking that one of these names sounds familiar, you are right.  The book of Ruth is the account of a Moabite woman, whose husband has died.  Ruth follows her mother Naomi to Israel out of her devotion to the woman's well-being.  There she meets a Jewish man, Boaz, who eventually marries her.  In this case, Ruth is not an abomination to Jews in Boaz' community because she converts and worships the LORD.  The problem in Ezra's time is that the faithfulness to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has become blended with all kinds of religious practices which are the cause of faithlessness to God.  (These practices included making idols, worshiping other gods, sacrificing children to those gods to attain favor with them, practicing divination, and consulting with the dead.)  Such practices are an offense to God!  Such marriages took place for a variety of reasons, like economic security, social status, to gain political power, and of course, love.  The Torah does not forbid intermarriage, but it does forbid the aforementioned practices.  I clearly remember how my grandmother felt about her raised Lutheran son marrying into a Catholic family.  I don't think that my uncle ever attended worship in either place after he was an adult.  Today, I have an older brother who married Catholic, and who is such a good and faithful person in his personal and spiritual life.  Of course, there is much more to each of these stories.  In our modern culture we don't see many issues in the church over intermarriage, but the problem comes when such a marriage draws a believer away from their relationship with God and causes them to lose their faith in Christ.  Sometimes in the church we are too easily convinced that the world and its ways are alright, but much of the world's ways have the potential to weaken our relationship with Christ, and that relationship is truly life itself.  Another part of this passage is the extraordinary grief which Ezra feels over finding such watering down, and losses of faith and the rule of the One True God.  I often think that the current new generation of adults, many of whom were raised in the church, and who have now dismissed Christ and His Church in their lives, are a reason for us to know the very same kind of grief.  When parents are faithful, I wonder if their children really know how hard it is for them to watch the faith and hope slip away to be replaced by living for today and for self.  To whom will our children turn, when life becomes too complicated and painful, or who will they find to bring strength and hope back into their lives?  Thank God, the Holy Spirit always continues her work to restore and reconcile those who have lost their way.  After all, wasn't that really the reason that Ezra headed off to the promised land?  He came to reinforce The LORD'S rule in the lives of these people.  All of this is the new wandering in the wilderness for the exiles who have come home just to lose their way.

Next week we will cover Ezra 9:5-15.

With the Love of Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 8:14-21 bible study (February 27, 2024)

February 27, 2024:  Tuesday morning Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 8:14-21

Blessings and Peace be with you today in the Name, and by the Power, of God's Grace in Jesus Christ.

Today please offer prayers that there will indeed be a meaningful cease-fire between Israel and the Gaza Strip, and that all hostages will be released to return home.  That includes all of the prisoners that Israel holds too.  This insanity between these peoples has been the cause of incredible destruction and death.  Instead of this whole area being the Holy Land, it has become an unholy place filled with hatred and chaos.  As we look at our study for today, we can, perhaps, come to see that there is a loss of understanding about the nature of one another's religions.  Both Judaism and the Moslem faith cry out for peace and harmony, but the understanding of the other seems to be too difficult for either side to grasp, especially when overwhelming self-concern becomes the overarching way of thinking for both communities.

Online Bible Study

Mark 8:14-21 – Remembering that Jesus has just, once again, fed thousands of people with a miracle of concern and generosity for those gathered who needed food.  As we get into today's passage, we discover that the disciples, it would appear. are faced with worrying about where their next meal will come from.  All the time that they are expressing their concern Jesus is attempting to get them to understand about the issues which they will all face with the Romans and the Pharisees.  It is not a harsh warning to the disciples from Jesus, after all these are the grown men (and perhaps some women) that Jesus has called in love to be His own leaders into the future of the Church.  According to Mark these people who Jesus loves, are often kind of blank in remembering what is really important rather than complaining about being hungry during their boat crossing of Galilee.  I can see Jesus shaking His head as he, once again, tries to help them understand the importance of focusing on what is coming for them, though at this point in Mark Jesus is not yet ready to reveal how His end will come.  Though He may be frustrated, He will choose instead to, once again, try to get them to think about more important things than being hungry.  In this passage there is this chasm between Divine thought, and the human self-concern.  Though both will ultimately blend together, at this point, the disciples seem unable to move in the direction of how they will serve others in the future when Christ is gone.  (The word leaven here holds a deeper meaning as well.  It is that bit of sourdough, which is stored, and then later can be combined with the dough for baking, and it will cause the new bread to rise.  Because leaven can spoil, it is viewed by the Jews as evil and unclean.  So, the meaning of leaven used to describe the other religious leaders and Herod, is meant to indicate the evil that resides in their lives.  They could indeed be "bread" to feed the world, but they are way too self-concerned.)

There may well be a reason for Jesus to talk about the Pharisees and Herod as being similarly evil.  Both are caught up in their drive to maintain their positions and power.  They both are expecting the coming Messiah to yield great power to overcome their worldly enemies, and to hold their places of authority.  Here Jesus is trying to get the disciples to see that when they come to see Him as the Anointed One of God, they should not get caught up in the temptation of acquiring that power for themselves!  We all know in today's world those clergy who are so determined to become the highest leaders of the faith, or pastor of the largest congregation, or the place with the best programs and performance attraction, instead of being filled only, and this is everything, with the joy of the Savior, and the hope which he means the clergy to bring to the world.  We have all seen too much of the other side of this.  All too often that clergy move every 3 or 4 years is just one more part of that ascending the latter of success, when real success is simply contained in the proclamation of God's Gospel for the world.  This is what Jesus wants the disciples to know, but instead they are hungry to feed their bellies.  We all need to remember that the Bread of Life always comes from God, who provides for, and fills the greatest needs in life with His Love through Jesus Christ.  With God's gift of faith in Christ in our lives, we can face any challenge that life throws at us and find strength in our Lord Jesus Christ to know comfort and peace.

With the Love of Christ, Pastor Kim

Pastor's Ponderings: Meandering through Mark 8:1-13 bible study (February 26, 2024)

February 26, 2024:  Monday morning Bible Study on the Gospel of Mark 8:1-13

Today give thanks to God for warm temps and sprinkles of rain with mostly clouded skies.  What a wonderful gift God's creation is for us all.  Today I am going to move into the Bible Study quickly.  I am hoping to cover 8:1-10 and more if there is time and space for that today.  Please remember that this coming Sunday is Gospel Music Sunday, and we also have a carry-in meal after church service.  The theme of the meal this coming week is "food".  There are also mid-week services on Wednesdays at Noon.  The services are about 40 minutes long and will make it possible for you to get back to work or other appointments in the afternoon on time.  In April Gospel Music Sunday will be on the 14th so that our group has an opportunity to practice, since their normal rehearsal would be on Easter Sunday.  On Easter, worship will be at 10AM, and will be preceded by the Easter carry-in brunch.  Beverages will be provided, so bring your brunch items for eating at 8:30AM.  We no longer have cooking facilities, other than plenty of outlets for slow cookers, or electric fry pans.  We can keep your food warm in the food warmer in the kitchen.

Meet us online for our virtual bible study

The feeding of the 4000 in Mark eight is a familiar story.  This miracle of Christ's this time, uses the food belonging to the disciples.  First of all, we come to understand quickly that Christ is very passionate about these people who have spent the day listening.  It is here that once again we see the very generous love which Christ has for these people who have spent the day. and it is even more amazing because this is not Israel.  This story takes place in the area of the Decapolis.  We might know this area by another name.  It is the Gerasene community, where the cemetery demoniac was healed.  So, those who gathered were, in all likelihood, Gentiles.  Perhaps they came because of that healing, and the witness of the healed man who had been running naked through the burial site, whose strength made it impossible for people to restrain him.  That man had the strength of Legion, so his radical change and his words about Jesus would draw some people to Christ.  The other part of this passage is the challenge that Jesus issues to the disciples.  They say that they have nowhere near enough to feed this number of people, and where would they get it anyway?  This location is in the desert.  There are few growing foods in this area, and any other ready supply of food would take hours to procure, if it was even available.  The language gives us some clues about this lesson and learning with which Jesus challenged the disciples.  The word for the basket in which the disciples carried their food was Kophinos, which was a small side shoulder bag not as large as a backpack.  However, when the left-over loaves and fish are collected, they are placed in baskets named sphuris.  This is a very large basket.  This is the word used for the basked in which Paul was let down over a wall.  It was big enough to hold a man!  It is an amazing example for the disciples, and us, about the bounty of God's blessings when we are compassionate with how we use our time, talent, and resources in the Kingdom work to which we are all called.  This is also a sign of the success of Christ's ministry and presence outside the borders of Israel.  It is the Gospel of Luke who makes this point of Christ's success outside of His own homeland. 

Mark 8:11-13 - In this passage we find the Pharisees looking for some sign that Jesus really was the Messiah.  They expected that if He could divide the Sea of Galilee in two, they would all know for certain about this man.  Ironic, isn't it?   He has just fed 4000 people across the border in the area of Decapolis.  The issue for the Pharisees was that they would never go there to talk to the people, to do so would make them unclean by Jewish "law".  They would not have even been willing to speak to a Samaritan or a person from the Decapolis.  However, that means they would rarely find themselves in those circumstances.  Of course, to never find such a person who could meet the measure of a really huge miracle, helped to keep them connected to the people of Israel who were looking for, but never finding any example of one of those major miracles of power.  The Jews looked for major miracles because they had been taught that was the only way to identify this new King.  Jesus says that no such sign will be given to these people.  The other inference is that if Jesus' miracles were not great enough to convince the religious authorities. He was only an itinerant troublemaker. Often Christ's teaching and healings were faced with being named heretic, so fear of being excluded from their communities kept His own people away.  Jesus' own people could not see who he was.  They are the blind spiritually.  They were unable to claim Him as Messiah, and only came close on the day that we call Palm Sunday in the Church Year, and all of that was likely part of the group mentality that often still happens.  But in reality, the glory and power of God is around us at every turn in our lives, the mountains' beauty, in the nature of this planet, The oceans of water, the abundance of edible plants, and so much more.  The God of all creation loves each of us helping us to meet Him through faith in His Son Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

I will be back with you tomorrow morning as we continue on in Mark 8.

With love in Christ, Pastor Kim